I feel like I've been hit in the gut with a spiked bat. I just found out that a movie with THE EXACT SAME STORYLINE as a script I just finished writing is already in development and has been for a couple of years now. And now I'm left with a 115-page chunk of firewood.

This sort of thing has happened to me before. When I was 15 and was trying to teach myself about screenwriting, I started writing a script about the President dying and the government hiring a double that turns out to do a better job than the real President. Six months later, I hear about Dave. That didn't bother me too much because, hey, I was 15 with no connections to anyone who could buy my idea.

Should I keep it around and maybe shop it as an example of my dialogue skills while trying to push another script (that hopefully hasn't been written already)? How can I decrease the chances of this happening again?

I'm sure this sort of thing has happened to at least one person out there. Please, any advice is welcome (I know I should get used to it but still...).

when I was thirteen I wrote a five page story about a girl dying and the effects that had on everyone she knew, a week later, I saw a play on tv that was very similar, even one of the characters had the same name!

Logged

"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."-Emir Kusturica

this happened to me with memento -- had a very similar idea that i had been writing for a year -- it wasnt the same story structure as far as the reversed time line -- however the temp memory loss and clouded perception of a passed event was exactly the same -- as well as the whole tone,texture, scenery of the film. i went and saw memento after reading a brief synopsis with my fingers crossed hoping for the best. after 10 minutes into the film i wanted to vomit. it was the most horrible 2 hours of my life -- its such a fucking painful experience. all you can really do is scratch it and move on -- i even had the idea registered with the wga before memento script was written -- however teh damage is already done,, i have no interest in sewing christopher nolan.

Obviously what you are doing right now is called (in my upcoming book of psychology at least) validation. I think it's a normal thing to do. People will reply, say anything, and then you're gonna do what you were subconsciently thinking of doing all along.

usually when I come up with an idea, what grabs me about it is an element that I feel I haven't seen been done in movies before. That's what excites me and keeps me motivated to make it a real, fleshed out thing. I've made the mistake in the past of immediately checking up to make sure that the exact thing I'm trying to do hasn't already been covered. I think that is just an invitation to be discouraged and stop writing. Even though GTS started this thread about how shitty it feels when you find out that something you came up with has been made, you should finish your own work before you start worrying about what other people are doing. For all you know, you could have a much better script than the next guy's, and if not, maybe there's a germ of an idea in your writing that would never have been there if you hadn't started in the first place.